Eight years ago, Carolyn Gowen upped sticks from the UK to renovate a dilapidated farmhouse in southwest France, taking her husband and 100 sheep and goats with her. Escaping to France to ‘live the dream’ is a well-worn path for many Brits. Fewer though are also able to run a successful financial planning consultancy simultaneously.
Carolyn has no regrets about the move, seamlessly fitting it into her schedule as owner and director of Bloomsbury Wealth in London. “I live here in France full-time and go back to the office [in the City] once a month for a week. We’ve made sure that doesn't impact on the service we provide to our clients.”
A long-standing CISI member, Carolyn has nearly 30 years of experience in the financial planning profession under her belt. And the way she sees things, the chief qualities her clients prize her for – as a sounding board and a ‘critical friend’ – are not compromised by operating out of a French farmhouse. “Frankly, they don’t care where I am as long as the job gets done,” she says.
Dramatic beginningsCarolyn’s beginnings in the financial planning business were unorthodox. She had been working as a stage manager in the mid-1980s until her husband took a job in the drama department at Bristol University in 1987. Realising that job opportunities in the theatre would be limited, she answered an advert in a local paper asking if she would like to learn about unit trusts.
The advertiser was a then little-known outfit called Hargreaves Lansdown. By June 1987, Carolyn had her first position as a life and pensions administrator, working for a couple of directors, one of whom – a Bristol-based retirement planning guru – came to be her mentor.
Carolyn soon realised that what she wanted to do was go out and advise clients, and with strong encouragement from the leadership at Hargreaves Lansdown, she did just that. But she later realised that what she was most passionate about – financial planning – wasn't necessarily that firm’s main focus.
After eight years at Hargreaves Lansdown, Carolyn joined Godwins, a now-defunct employee benefits and financial advice firm with nationwide coverage. Relocating to Cornwall, Carolyn developed a number of lawyer and accountancy firm clients. One of those clients approached her with a view to running a new financial planning arm they wanted to set up, and she didn’t have to be asked twice.
Critical friend From this vantage point, Carolyn learned one of the biggest lessons of her career. “It’s not all about the planning you do for people; it's also the human and emotional side of things that are just as important,” she says, pointing out that building long-term relationships with clients means sharing so much more of their lives than their personal finances – it requires becoming a ‘critical friend’.
The foot and mouth crisis of 2001 was a case in point. “I was working in North Devon when the disease hit,” says Carolyn. “The majority of our clients then were farmers, and I had a smallholding of my own. When I drove to work each day, I was going past massive pyres of burning animals.
“I’ve sat with clients who have told me about health problems and they say ‘don’t tell my accountant’, who introduced me to them”“One client, who was old enough to be my grandfather, was upset over the loss of all of his cattle – a herd that he and generations of his family had bred and nurtured over the years. That taught me that this job is not just about the money – it’s about being there to help people when crisis strikes,” she says.
Carolyn goes on to explain that at that particular scheduled meeting, the intended agenda of reviewing the family’s financial planning went out the window. “What he needed at that point was just someone to listen to him,” she says. “Although victims of the foot and mouth outbreak were compensated for the loss of their animals in monetary terms, which of course we helped with, this was completely irrelevant at that meeting. No amount of compensation could replace what he had lost. My job on that day was simply to listen. The point is, sometimes you can walk into a meeting with an agenda and find yourself just having to park that and provide what the client needs.”
Element of trustCarolyn often finds herself in unique situations with clients. “We are in an extremely privileged position because people share things with us that they don’t tell anyone but their nearest and dearest. I’ve sat with clients who have told me about health problems and they say ‘don’t tell my accountant’, who introduced me to them. We do get to hear things that nobody else hears.”
For a client to impart such personal information means financial planners must first earn their trust – and that is not always easy. “For clients to open up doesn't always happen overnight. Some might take a while for that to happen, whereas for others it just clicks immediately.“
From strength to strengthIn 2003, Carolyn joined Bloomsbury Wealth, a fee-based business that started in the late-1990s. The firm wasn’t profitable and the directors decided to change the client profile, and act only for the high-net-worth market. “We decided to restructure the business such that any new clients we took on would need a minimum of £1m investable assets. This led us to review our existing client bank, and find suitable homes for those for whom our fees would no longer provide good value.”
The firm was sold to a bigger entity, but the fit with other groups in the business – which were mainly commission-based – wasn’t good, so Carolyn and other senior colleagues undertook a management buyout in 2005.
The firm has since gone from strength to strength. Along the way Carolyn has won numerous awards: Money Management Financial Planner of the Year, Investment Trust Planner, Unit Trust Planner and Retirement Planner.
Bloomsbury Wealth has allowed Carolyn to focus on what she does best – client interaction, which she finds the most rewarding aspect of the job. “What I love most is being a problem solver. For example, we recently had clients come in for a review who were slightly concerned as they hadn't worked for a while, and were a couple of years away from intended retirement. They thought, 'Is this it? And what does that mean for our finances?'”
Weight liftedThey were a bit on edge when they came in for the meeting. “But when we showed them their financial plan, made some adjustments to the assumptions on earnings and a few other changes, they could see it was fine. They didn’t need to worry if they didn’t work again as they had enough money at that point to be able to afford to stop. Just to see that weight lifting from a client’s shoulders, and to have them leave the meeting more relaxed and confident about their future – that’s what I love,” she says.
“It’s all about behaviour and building relationships. That is the cornerstone of it.”
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Top five financial advice priorities according to advisers |
Top five areas consumers have sought advice for |
| 1 |
Retirement planning |
Mortgages (not first-time buyers) |
| 2 |
At-retirement decisions |
Life insurance |
| 3 |
Inheritance tax |
Retirement planning |
| 4 |
Critical illness cover |
Savings (other than ISAs) |
| 5 |
Long-term care cover |
First-time buyer mortgages |
| Source: unbiased.co.uk |